Virtualization Reality

Transcription

1 Virtualization Reality Gartner RAS Core Research Note G , Philip Dawson, 30 July 2010, RA Virtualization continues to deliver IT savings and efficiencies, and is the foundation for many IT initiatives. This research focuses on the impact of virtualization on traditional IT areas of servers, desktops, storage and management, as well as the future impact and planning aspects. ANALYSIS Virtualization continues as the highest-impact issue challenging infrastructure and operations through It changes how you manage, how and what you buy, how you deploy, how you plan and how you charge. It also shakes up licensing, pricing and component management. Infrastructure is on an inevitable shift from components that are physically integrated by vendors (for example, monolithic servers) or manually integrated by users to logically composed fabrics of computing, input/output (I/O) and storage components, and is key to cloud architectures. This research explores many facets of virtualization. It was stated by Gartner in 2008 that virtualization touches virtually everything. Now, quite simply put, virtualization is a core IT scenario, realizing better savings across IT projects and enabling many other IT projects and functions. Virtualization now drives efficient IT from all angles, including data center design, platform updates, and application and infrastructure modernization, as well as traditional and new delivery models, such as infrastructure utility and cloud computing (see Figure 1). However, virtualization as an IT hub does take investment; the savings are not a given. Multiple server types/form factors, storage and networks all benefit from virtualization, and the requirement to abstract and manage the physical hardware and virtual workload or application in a logical (managed) manner. This in itself is driving infrastructure convergence and unification to common fabrics. These fabrics and virtualization projects have to be built on common management and tools, storage and security practices. Finally, more than 80% of enterprises now have a virtualization program or project, but only 20% of all server workloads are in a virtual machine (VM). Although clients think they have virtualized their x86 servers, in reality, they have to plan for two to three times the growth of virtualization in the portfolio.

2 2 Server Infrastructure Virtualization As virtualization matures, the next big thing will be automating the composition and management of the virtualized resources. Storage has already been virtualized, but primarily within the scope of individual vendor architectures. Networking is also virtualized. The leading edge of this change is server virtualization. Roughly 90% of the server market is composed of x86 architecture servers. Based on a traditional model of one application per server, roughly 80% to 90% of the x86 computing capacity is unused at anytime. This unused capacity needs to be managed. It takes up data center space and requires power and cooling. Virtualization promises to unlock much of this underutilized capacity. IT organizations are approaching server virtualization as a cost-saving measure, and it is saving money. However, organizations that have a mature server virtualization deployment in place are leveraging virtualization for much more: faster deployments, reduced downtime, disaster recovery, variable usage accounting and usage chargeback, holistic capacity planning and more (see Figure 2). The ideal heterogeneity model of virtualization (logically integrated and managed infrastructure, fluid movement across the network of platforms, management of the life cycle of the applications independent of the platform, and an operational view of all resources holistically) will not be achieved in a big-bang, ah-ha moment of revelation. We recognize that various IT organizations will move at a pace consistent with their needs, as well as with their business, service and organizational practices. However, we urge an awareness of a planning process based on a maturity model from which IT infrastructure planners can measure and evaluate Figure 1. Virtualization: Fabricates Infrastructure and Operations Source: Gartner (August 2010) 2010 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. or its affiliates. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without Gartner s prior written permission. The information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information and shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in such information. This publication consists of the opinions of Gartner s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. Although Gartner research may include a discussion of related legal issues, Gartner does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner is a public company, and its shareholders may include firms and funds that have financial interests in entities covered in Gartner research. Gartner s Board of Directors may include senior managers of these firms or funds. Gartner research is produced independently by its research organization without input or influence from these firms, funds or their managers. For further information on the independence and integrity of Gartner research, see Guiding Principles on Independence and Objectivity on its website,

3 Figure 2. Virtualization Phases of Maturity 3 Source: Gartner (August 2010) progress against a timeline of expected innovations, and move at a pace within an envelope that leaves it neither lagging behind industry norms, nor exceeding the practical envelope of proven technologies. Recognizing the stages, challenges and when to proceed through the cycles of development, test, quality assurance and production will govern the relative success of ongoing deployments in the physical and virtual infrastructures alike. Each phase of virtualization adoption has its own separate investment and savings cycles. Each saving phase must not only be realized, but must also fund the later stages, e.g., agility through integration. If these savings are not reinvested, many virtualization initiatives will fail or stall. Finally, different projects and scenarios require the benefits of the different phases of virtualization. This leads to a new phase of integration. This is the integration of the technologies, processes and sourcing options and, in turn, requires its own planned investment. Virtualization of server platforms and related infrastructure are examined in: Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure Virtualization Key Initiative Overview VMware: Strong Results and Outlook; a Cloud Play? Virtual Machines and Market Share Through 2012 Unix Platform Virtualization Is Growing Avoiding the 10 Pitfalls That Can Derail a Server Consolidation Project Market Trends: x86 Virtualization Market Driven by Management and Desktop Needs Market Share Analysis: IT Operations Management Software, Worldwide, 2009

4 4 Adopting a Virtual, Logical or Physical Approach to Workload Deployment Toolkit: Selecting to Virtualize Application Servers Toolkit: Selecting to Virtualize OLTP Servers Toolkit: Selecting to Virtualize Web Servers Toolkit: Selecting to Virtualize Infrastructure Servers Toolkit: Determining When to Virtualize Data Warehouse DBMS Server Workloads Virtualizing ERP Infrastructure Using SEM Extended n-tier Workloads Q&A: Six Misconceptions About Server Virtualization Client Computing: Hosted Virtual Desktop Hosted virtual desktops (HVDs) transfer the thick-client computing environment that runs on a PC to a server, removing some management overhead from the desktop location and allowing administrators to centralize their activities. This centralization allows IT to move some of the management activities that sit on a PC to a server, enabling administrators to manage desktops in a central location. While this enhances flexibility for administration, it requires more computing and storage capacity at the data center level. Many data center managers are investigating ways to accommodate HVDs. HVDs are poised to undergo explosive growth, and enterprises are anticipating the flexibility and other benefits that these devices will bring. However, beyond the manageability and security benefits of HVDs loom challenges that will require the attention of IT. The data center will have to make many adjustments, as HVDs will require additional power and capacity. Each HVD image is a server workload that has its own infrastructure requirements, especially if thousands of users in a given organization are using this platform type. Furthermore, most organizations have more users than server workloads; converting all or many of these users to HVDs could have a massive impact on the data center. IT managers and data center architects should move ahead of the trend, and plan for the onslaught in capacity demand and all it will entail. HVDs provide end-user flexibility, efficiency, energy savings and other benefits, enabling administrators to manage desktops from a centralized location and end users to access their desktops from machines in any location. However, enterprises need to understand the strain this technology can place on their data center infrastructures and operations, especially when thousands of employees use this platform type. This research discusses the continues impact of virtualization on client computing, focusing on HVDs: Get Ready for Hosted Virtual Desktops Top 10 Issues With Hosted Virtual Desktops Prepare Networks for HVD Deployments Prepare Your Server Infrastructure for HVD Investments Prepare the Data Center for Hosted Virtual Desktops When Server Virtualization for Server-Based Computing Workloads Makes Sense Choosing from 10 Client Computing Architectures Ten Best Practices for Building Client Computing Road Maps Hype and PC Hypervisors: Why Enterprises Must Wait to Adopt Toolkit: Hosted Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Planner Through Thick and Thin: Zeroing in on the Perfect HVD-Client Device Q&A for Understanding Microsoft Licensing Requirements Before Deploying HVDs Emerging Technology Analysis: Servers Deployed to Support Hosted Virtual Desktops Organizational and Staffing Considerations When Planning for Hosted Virtual Desktops Storage Virtualization Initiatives Since storage virtualization came on the scene in the 1980s, it has become integral to the way organizations handle stored data. Server virtualization and associated consolidation projects increase the demands on and require changes within the storage infrastructure, so they cannot be deployed or managed in isolation. Without proper storage planning and storage infrastructure changes, server virtualization projects risk failure. This research provides advice and guidelines on how to properly plan for an high-availability storage environment for a server virtualization infrastructure. Virtualization has become such an integral part of storage that it s difficult to fathom how organizations stored data before the 1980s, when virtualization technology became viable. In storage, virtualization refers to the presentation of a simple file, logical volume or other storage object (like a disk drive) to an application in a way that enables the physical complexity of the storage function to be hidden from the administrator and the application. Examples

5 include redundant array of independent disks (RAID), volume management, virtual memory, file systems and virtual tape. The research listed herein outlines many aspects of storage virtualization and illustrates how storage virtualization is vital to every aspect of storage deployment. The storage aspects of virtualization are explored in: Storage Virtualization Is Changing Storage Deployment Storage Infrastructure Considerations in a Virtual Server Environment Deploy Storage Virtualization to Meet Business and Storage Strategy Requirements Accelerate Application Mobility Using a New Storage Virtualization Technology Storage Management Tools in a Virtualized Server Environment External (Heterogeneous) Storage Virtualization: Successful Use Cases Interest Declines for Use of the Distributed Virtual Tape Library Interface New Storage Solutions Can Modernize Data Life Cycle Management How to Implement High-Availability Storage for Server Virtualized Environments Virtualization: Budget Impact and Data Center Management Disciplines Virtualized licensing continues to present a major stumbling block to widespread adoption of virtualization. The industry has been slow to address the problem. As vendors change their software pricing and associated license provisions to accommodate virtual use, negotiators must plan to spend an increased amount of time per contract to understand the effect of such changes on planned software use. Clients that do not diligently monitor the ways each vendor is responding to virtual use issues are likely to experience significantly increased costs and the unintended impairment of their current license rights. During the Gartner 28th Annual Data Center Conference in December 2009, we polled audience members during a session entitled, Server Virtualization TCO Offsets. While the results of the poll are not strictly scientific, they provide insight into the market, because we have found that these polls track current trends and attitudes fairly well. Although several polling questions were asked, this slide focuses exclusively on a single question: With virtualization, have you seen your budgets, increase, decrease or stay the same? For the results, see Figure 3. 5 Figure 3. Virtualization Savings Budgets and Costs Source: Gartner (August 2010)

6 6 The results of the polling highlight many savings of virtualization with regard to servers, power and cooling at the cost of software, test/development and storage. It also shows overall data center and operations budgets are flat. Detailed analysis follows showing cost drivers and savings for virtualization: Server Budgets: Server budgets improve, but still take an investment based on consolidation and platform updates. The number of platforms decreases, but the average price increases due to large memory costs and virtual I/O. Storage Budgets: Increases in the storage budget are due to the separation of storage from servers from inexpensive, unmanaged internal disks to external separately accountable network storage (storage area network [SAN] or networkattached storage [NAS]). Data Center Budgets: Data center budgets overall flatten out, where data center savings equal investments. These results show a standard distribution curve, with no deviation for increase or decrease in budgets. Power and Cooling Budgets: Power and cooling initiatives see budgets improve, due to the server platform update to moreefficient systems and the general increase of utilization with consolidation. Software Budgets: Software budgets also increase, due not only to virtualization, but also to increased high availability; SLAs are required. Test/Development Budgets: Test and development costs also increase due to the increased intimacy of workload analysis needed for test/development with virtualization. This comes from the three main areas in what not to virtualize physical issues, transactional issues and commercial issues. Operations Budgets: Operation budgets stay similar to a standard distribution, with little change, due to operational budgets moving from disparate systems to fewer bettermanaged, but more complex, physical systems. Virtualization challenges many traditional tenets of IT infrastructure, and this has ramifications on its management. The first is location. Most IT resources are fixed in their placements, but virtual assets in many vendor implementations can move dynamically. Second is how they are represented that is, as files. This makes some activities, such as provisioning, easier, but may present a greater challenge in security. Packaging is changing as well. VMs are being packaged as appliances. This removes some of the volatility that might stem from configuration variability, but the opaqueness of this approach raises issues about what is inside the appliance packaging. A key part of a virtual server initiative is the process of assessing server and application candidates for virtualization. The goal isn t just to maximize density, but also to rightsize workloads through an understanding of application behavior. Most enterprises attempt to place roughly similar types of workloads on the same host or server because the effects of widely varying demand could have deleterious effects on the overall quality of service. This also means it s rare (but tempting) to comingle low-use test VMs with moreconsumptive production VMs, because the former environment is more dynamic, and the constant powering on and off of VMs can be felt across the entire server. This research looks at the data center, portfolio, security, management and operational issues associated with virtualization: Hype Cycle for Virtualization, 2010 Eight Critical Forces Will Shape Enterprise Data Center Strategies Data Center Power, Cooling and Space: A Worrisome Outlook for the Next Two Years Reviewing the Dimensions of Virtual Server Infrastructure Performance Monitoring Virtualization Is Bringing Together Configuration and Performance Management New Approaches to Client Management Addressing the Most Common Security Risks in Data Center Virtualization Projects IT Chargeback and Cost Allocation Infrastructure Utility for SAP: Comparing Architectural Offerings Q&A: How to License Software Under Virtualization Toolkit Server Virtualization TCO Model Toolkit: An RFP Template for the Virtualization of Server Infrastructure Virtualization is not simply a set of technologies buried in infrastructure. It also has important ramifications on the business use of IT, and on business itself. IT customers are often reticent about sharing equipment with other business units, and losing control of where their applications and their data reside. Ideally, customers should focus on service levels and results, not on physical location or IT methodologies. In reality, this cultural issue needs to be overcome, and can be by building success stories. The result, however, is a relationship between the business and IT that becomes more service-oriented, giving IT more flexibility on how work gets done (or how work is sourced). The ability to deploy capacity and server images virtually increases the speed of deployment roughly by a factor of 30 times. When customers are familiar with a deployment time of two months, a sudden shift to two days might require fundamental changes to business processes.